The co-authors of One Year One Night, a novel set at the beginning of WW2, try to base their novels on plenty of historical research. Laura Meloni Bywaters and Sarah Onions write under the pen name of SL Roman and their first novel was published in North America and elsewhere in August.

One historical theme of WW2 is the new presence of women in the services.

There were a number of military organisations which saw women in uniform.The Women’s Auxiliary Air Force – or WAAF’s – enrolled just under 200,000 thousand females at first. Then in a further boost, nearly 34 thousand were enrolled from Dec 1941. They compiled weather reports, maintained aircraft, served on airfields and worked in intelligence.They came from all over the world and were mostly aged between 18 and 40. Nearly 16 percent of the British Royal Air Force were women in 1943.

‘Bluebirds’ by Margaret Mayhew was one of a number in the genre of wartime potboilers which tells the story of how ordinary women signed up and went to train and live on RAF bases.

The naval arm of the British military machine, the WRNS or Wrens as they were known, saw 74 thousand women involved in 200 different jobs at a wartime height.Few served at sea – they were radio operators, meteorologists and bomb markers.Also cooks,clerks, wireless telegraphists, range assessors, electricians and air mechanics.

Then there were the Land Girls who helped the British famers.Their numbers peaked in 1944 when there were more than 80 thousand. The recruiting posters show sunny images of pink-cheeked, smiling girls armed with pitchforks in their uniform with country colours of brown and green. However, the working and living conditions on farms were often harsh.

There were also women in the Civil Defence groups which included the Air Raid wardens although they were less common than the men. There was one lady ARP in London at one point in WW2.

As the Second World War wore on both men and women manned the so-called Ack Ack guns. These were the anti-aircraft guns who fired back at the aerial bombers.

And of course there were women at Bletchley where the Nazi’s codes were broken – these were WRNS or Wrens. 75 % of the workforce at the home of the Enigma machine were female though they were under represented in the code breakers.

There were British women members of the Special Organisations Executive or SOE who were parachuted into France when it was occupied by the Nazis. But an American spy was one of the most effective and the first Allied woman to go undercover for the SOE in France. This woman, Virginia Hall, was forgotten about after WW2 – even by the French who had given her a medal for bravery. But her story was brought back in view in the book A Woman of No Importance by Sonia Purnell. Hall was working as a spy out of London from February 1941.

Note to editor. SL Roman is the pen-name of Sarah Onions and Laura Meloni Bywaters who both live in the borough of Kingston in SW London. Sarah was born in Brighton in southern England and Laura was born in Rome. Permission for use of photos has been applied for.

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